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(1900-45). German politician, police administrator, and military commander Heinrich Himmler became the second most powerful man in the Third Reich (Germany’s regime from 1933 to 1945) after Adolf Hitler. Himmler was a ruthless and clever power seeker who was devoted to Hitler until the final weeks of World War II. Himmler’s cold-blooded, fanatical belief in Nazi racist theories made him the chief organizer of the Holocaust, in which millions of Jews, Slavs, Roma (Gypsies), and other minorities were killed.